Please help me, I recently purchased a 1995 C280 Benz and it drove fine the first few days and know it is having some hesitation problem or misfiring problem. The crazy thing is, is it doesn't do it all the time I can turn the key off and it goes away only to come back again. What it is doing is when in drive and at a stop it is serging, and when driving it is backfiring and sputtering a bit, like i said it doen't do it all the time, earlier today it drove great, tonight like crap???? this is really wierd

 

some loose wirings or airmass sensor.

 

is the air mass sensor something I can check or fix without replacing with a new one?

 

if the airmass sensor wiring is bad, then you can fix.

if it's the airmass sensor itself... you need to replace.

find a place where they can do the scanning for any fault code stored in your computer.

never change anything not unless you are 100% sure. they aren't cheap.

 

air mass does not cause misfires sorry guys misfires come from ignition. replaced the spark plugs crack if there are any black lines on the porceline of the spark plugs and drive it see if the problem goes away.

 

First try this. Disconnect the negative battery terminal for at least 10 minutes. This should reset the cars ECU. See how it runs then. You will probably have to reset certain functions, I don't know if the 95 model year had one touch windows, or if you have a moonroof or sunroof. or any type of stability or traction control. My 99 C280 does, and there are instructions in the owners manual how to reset.

This tip worked on my car, and solved several annoying problems I was having. Can't gaurantee it works on a 95, but it is worth a try. I agree with both Sleepwalker and Vytamenc. It could be the MAS or the plugs or even the plug wires. Go out at night, start the dark open the hood and see if there is any arcing from the plug wires. there could be some cracks in the wire insulation you can see, but this is a old test to see the arc. No lights on at all, as they could be very quick and not bright. I found a crack in the insulation of the coil wire on my 450SLC doing this. This is really old time troublshooting, taught to me by a mechanic who was at the time in his 70's and I in my teens. I think he is probably in auto heaven now?

 

My '95 was doing the same thing on 2 different occasions. The first time, new plugs and wires fixed it...the 2nd time it was the wiring running to the coils. To access the plugs,wires and coils, you'll have to pull the cover off the top of the engine that has the torx head bolts in it.

You may not have read about the wiring in '95's yet, but it's pretty bad. I love my 280, but if I were doing it again I'd probably get a '96 up. The wiring harness has problems with the insulation becoming brittle and breaking off of the wires, thus exposing them which allows arcs. I think I've finally worked all of my bugs out. Hopefully you can too - they are fun cars to drive and own if you're a car nut like myself. If you're going to attempt a lot of the work yourself, you'd be money ahead to join www.alldatadiy.com It's $24.95 per year, but you get all the repair procedures for your specific car. It's already paid for itself so many times I can't count.

Good luck on locating your problem.

 

Hi, I have the same problem on my C280 '97 and I also thought that it might be because of the spark plugs, I bought them from advanced auto parts and I am gonna change them this week-end. When I used to leave in Europe I had an Opel with the same prob and after I changed the spark plugs it begane to work properly. So it worth to try.

 

My car did the same. Turned out to be the wiring harness was shorting at the coil pack causing two of cylinders not to fire.

I see you already posted about a new wiring harness. If your harness is going bad, I would bet that is your problem with the misfire!